De Boer: “Play was extremely sub-par”

Frank de Boer looked back on the 1-0 loss to Vitesse in the Gelredome with the necessary reluctance. The Ajacied was painfully realistic: Vitesse rightfully won Sunday afternoon’s match. “Ajax wasn’t threatening at any time.”

Ajax’s streak of fifteen undefeated (Eredivisie) matches was brutally broken Vitesse on Sunday. Leader PSV saw its lead jump to 9 points. There wasn’t much to be happy about in the Gelredome. “It’s about the play you want to see”, said De Boer in retrospect. The Ajax coach didn’t hesitate to place blame where it belonged. “We didn’t play our game today. What we need is to be dominant again as soon as possible. To do that, we’ll need to work our tails off and keep believing.”

“All we earned today was a lousy 0-1”, evaluated De Boer based on a rare attack on goalie Eloy Room. “You would hope for a reaction, after Sunday’s match against Feyenoord. I did see a shift in the mindset, especially defensively. But we weren’t threatening, not at any time.”

The coach knows what he’s going to dish out to his Ajax players this week. De Boer: “I will show them clips. And we’ll talk a lot. The guys have shown before that they can play. We need to hang on to that. They did fight today. It’s just about the moments in which you can really manage to make a difference.”

De Boer: “Vitesse earned this win fair and square. They were the most threatening. Our play is extremely sub-par right now, although we are still in second place. But it’s about how we are playing; if this happens again, we’re going to lose more points, irretrievably. So let’s not talk about the championship at this point.”